


Fledgling

by quickmanifyouloveme



Series: Ornithology [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Angst with a Happy Ending, Codependency, Consensual Underage Sex, Consent Issues, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dead Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson is Batman, Dirty Talk, Dissociation, Families of Choice, Flashbacks, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Painful Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pseudo-Incest, Tim Drake is The Best Brother in Gotham, Trans Dick Grayson, Underage Character is 17, Vaginal Sex, victim blames himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickmanifyouloveme/pseuds/quickmanifyouloveme
Summary: "But are you in love with me?""I can't let you leave."Bruce Wayne has died. Tim asks Dick why he doesn't want to help get their father back. Dick is tired of lying about the two years before he left to become Nightwing.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Ornithology [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922497
Comments: 11
Kudos: 284





	Fledgling

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't read this if it'll fuck you up. If you need to tread carefully, know that it does end happily. In this fic, Dick is 27, Jason is 21, Tim is 17, and Damian is 10. Dick became Robin at 9 and Nightwing at 19.

“I wanted him to love me,” Dick said, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Tim cocked his head and kept up his clinical, piercing stare. He was imitating a psychologist: detached, calm, nonthreatening. As if this had nothing to do with him. As if what Dick had done hadn’t rippled through his brothers’ lives in ways that he’d recognized but couldn’t stop.

Tim’s façade cracked after Dick spoke, his split lip twitching down for just a moment.

Dick took a shaky breath. He owed this to Tim, for pummeling him into the floorboards and nearly breaking his arm because Tim had cornered him and demanded, _Why don’t you want him back, why don’t you want to save him, what if he’s in pain, he’s your dad_. Not “our dad.” Just Dick’s. The backwardness of that statement had stung so bad that the angry nineteen-year-old Dick had once been had taken over and slammed into his little brother full-force.

He stared at the scuffs on the thin wood where his combat-hardened knuckles had scraped the floor, again and again, inches away from Tim’s face. Tim didn’t deserve any of that. He shouldn’t have let Dick stay either, but he’d pushed Dick onto the couch, pulled up a chair for himself, and said, “Talk to me.”

Dick continued, “I… loved him so much, and he was pushing me away. At first, I thought it was because I wasn’t good enough.” Dick looked away from Tim; his eyes darted around the main room of Tim’s safehouse, taking in the minifridge, the spider web-cracked window, the domino mask that Tim had flung onto the floor when he’d said sorry and yelled at Dick to stop. “I wasn’t obedient enough. I talked back. I wanted to hang out with the Titans instead of spar with him, day after day. I played music too loud, I left my costume on the floor sometimes, I made Alfred cook me separate dinners because I wanted chicken nuggets instead of asparagus and salmon.”

The last one pulled a huff of almost-laughter from Tim. “But you know now that you were wrong, right? You’re the best of us.” Dick raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I get it, we’re all different. And I used to worship the ground you walked on. Before you punched me into it.” God, that hurt. Tim gave him the thinnest smile Dick had ever seen from him. “But when he was training me on the high bar and the pommel horse and all your old stuff, it was a lot of, ‘Dick kept his body tighter; Dick relaxed his elbows; Dick could make that jump with his eyes closed.’”

“That wasn’t fair of him.” Dick’s hands twitched with the urge to breach the foot or two between them and grasp Tim’s shoulder, or his arm, or something. “You weren’t—none of you were supposed to be me.”

Tim’s eyes rested on Dick’s shaking hands. He smiled ruefully. “None of us were supposed to be here at all. You were supposed to be the only Robin.”

Dick hated that he couldn’t deny that and still tell the truth. And he didn’t want to lie to Tim. He was so tired; Batman’s cape was so heavy. He’d taken it off a while ago, but its weight pressed on his shoulders like the Earth on Atlas’s.

Tim added mercilessly, “Even if you weren’t the best one, you’re his favorite.”

“Well.” Dick rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know any of this would happen when I was seventeen. I thought he would never respect me, as an adult or a partner. And then…” He sat back, squeezed his eyes shut, and crossed his arms. _Here we go_. “I figured it out. He wasn’t pushing me away because I wasn’t good enough. But because he… wanted. He wanted me.”

His brother froze. Dick kept his eyes closed but couldn’t help hearing the intake of breath, or the creak of pleather as Tim clutched the armchair. “Wanted… to fuck you?”

Dick wrestled a bright grin onto his face. Everyone always loved that one, even Bruce. “Yep.”

“But he’s—you’re his son.” Tim’s calm demeanor splintered further and further as he spoke: “You’re his kid! He raised you! How did you even—”

“Know?” Dick opened his eyes again. Tim was redder than he’d even seen him, the corners of his mouth twitching in disgust. “I’d wanted him for a long time. Since puberty. Every time sparring got a little out of hand, or we avoided looking at each other in the showers, I recognized what he felt.”

Tim keeled forward until his head was between his knees. “You were seventeen. Sevenfuckingteen.”

“When it started.”

Tim gripped his own ankles and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. “And you became Nightwing when you were nineteen. Your own dad raped you for two years?”

Dick flinched at the word. “I wouldn’t… I wanted it, Tim, more than I can explain.”

“You said you wanted him to love you.” Tim raised his head just enough to stare at him again. “And you wanted him to respect you, and think of you as an adult and an equal. Did you want him to fuck you? Or did you just want him to be your dad, instead of being Batman?”

He wanted to unzip his skin and hop out the window and splat on the street below, anything to escape Tim and his own goddamn promise to tell the truth like he’d always wanted to. He gritted out, “All of it. I know it’s fucked up,” and here the taste of his own disgust made him nauseous, “and he’s still wrong for doing it, but there it is. I wanted my father to fuck me and he did.”

The words hung in the air. Dick swore both of them stopped breathing. He threw away his composure, hopped onto his feet, and started pacing. “I didn’t want you to know, _ever_ , but you asked why I don’t want him back.” He felt Tim watch him; his shoulders climbed to his ears. “I hated that he picked up both you and Jason, not because I didn’t want to be replaced but because I was afraid for you.” His heart clenched as he paced faster. “He didn’t hurt you, right?”

“Oh, Dick,” Tim sighed. “ _No_. I don’t know about Jason, but I don’t think—no. But now there’s Damian, right?”

Dick ran his palms down his cheeks and jerked his head into a nod. “He’s so _young_. He trusts me, he looks up to me like you did, I think he even needs me. If Bruce ever came back, I don’t think I could let Damian go.”

Tim was quiet for a long, long time. Dick wrung his hands, wincing at how his newly-scraped calluses stung, and darted between one end of the room and the other.

Dick startled when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. He let Tim turn him around so they could see each other, closer than before. “I’m sorry,” Dick said, salt stinging his eyes. “Timmy, I’m so sorry.”

Tim shushed him, reached up to wrap his other arm around Dick’s shoulders, and pulled him into a hug. “What are you apologizing for, Big Bird? You’re right. You shouldn’t let Damian go.” Dick squeezed Tim so tight he felt both their bones creak. “And you’re not gonna have to, because Bruce isn’t coming back.”

Dick jerked back as if to pull away, but Tim held him close. “But,” Dick said, “you’re looking for him. It’s your big mission right now.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tim shook his head sharply, his hair brushing Dick’s cheek. “It’s not worth it anymore. Why would I wanna bring back a son of a bitch who hurt my brother like that?” His lithe frame trembled with what Dick was shocked to recognize as anger. “I’ll move back to Gotham, I’ll help out you and the demon, I’ll keep Jason off your tail. Anything I can do.”

Dick broke the hug, but stayed close. He looked at Tim with wet eyes. “Thank you.” He chuckled and said, “Hey, three out of four birds are coming home to roost. Maybe eventually we’ll get Jason back. And I can really apologize to him, too.”

“Again, Dick, apologize for _what_?”

“I…” He took the deepest breath he could and let it out slowly, slowly, so he had time to think. “I guess I didn’t protect you two. I knew he could’ve done something again and I didn’t tell anybody. But I think, as fucked up as it is, I knew he’d only feel that way about me. I was… special. Different.” He shrugged and ruffled his hair. “I dunno. Apparently, I was right.”

Tim screwed up his face and laid a light hand on Dick’s arm. “Whatever was going on inside his fucked up head, it wasn’t right. And it’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

Dick looked at his brother and hesitated.

“You were a kid, a teenager. You were my age!” Tim’s grip tightened the more worked up he got. “If he tried anything with Jason or me, it would have been _his_ fault, not yours.”

“But I could’ve—if someone knew, Gordon or Clark—” The idea of telling his childhood hero that he’d tried to seduce Bruce Wayne, _Batman_ , as a teenager and it had worked made his throat close up with an audible click. Tim waited for him to finish, looking up at him with barely-leashed fury that reminded him of Jason. Dick started again, “If they knew, maybe they could’ve, I dunno, put him somewhere. Away. And you and Jason and Dami wouldn’t have been involved in this mess at all.”

Tim shook his head. His hand slid down Dick’s arm to thread their fingers together, offering Dick an anchor that he gratefully took. “What-ifs don’t matter. Especially when they’re an excuse to hurt yourself.” Dick winced. “Look. I love you. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I ever believed in him,” angry tears welled behind Tim’s eyes and Dick had never felt guiltier, “but now I know, and he’s _not coming back_. Okay?”

He squeezed Tim’s hand and nodded. He believed Tim; he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. At the end of the day, a part of Dick would always be Robin and a part of Bruce would always be Batman, and no attempt to separate them had ever succeeded. Not for long. But he let his brother’s affection wash over him, just enough that he felt less like hiding and more like sleeping. “Okay, Timmy.”

Tim gave him a warm, shaky smile. “I gotta go for a minute. I need to call off Barbara and Cass. Sit down, have some water, maybe even rest for a second or two.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Dick let go of Tim’s hand and slumped back onto the old, creaky couch that bore just about the number of coffee stains that he expected from Tim. Tim gave him a parting pat on the shoulder and disappeared into another room, probably where he kept all his equipment. Away from windows, street cameras, prying eyes. Especially Bruce’s.

He scratched the length of his left bicep where Bruce had implanted his second tracking chip. Dick had dug out the first one after he’d left for Blüdhaven and put on the black and blue, but a scant two years later, he’d gotten hurt enough in Gotham that Robin—Jason—had hustled him to the Cave for Alfred and Leslie to fret over. He’d woken up with a spider thread-thin scar and knew what Bruce had done. Protective, possessive, paranoid, domineering, control freak.

 _I… need you_ , Bruce’s voice echoed as if down a long hall. _You saved me._ Dick leaned back against the couch cushions and closed his eyes. _I can’t let you leave_. 

-

He was in the Cave again. Red and yellow tunic half-unbuttoned, scaled green leotard showing from beneath. The chalk that he’d rubbed between his thighs at the beginning of patrol had sweated off, leaving him just a little bit sore. Maybe he should wear tights, or a full body suit, one that faded into Gotham’s shadows as completely as Batman’s did. Dick loved the Robin costume, but if he kept wearing the Flying Graysons’ colors, maybe Bruce would keep seeing him as just a circus boy.

“Eight years,” Dick said, trailing behind Bruce as he stripped off his belt and gauntlets. Robin’s gloves groaned as Dick balled up his fists. “I deserve to be your partner, Bruce.”

“You are.” Bruce removed the cowl slowly, hiding his expression behind the whisper of thin leather. On purpose, Dick knew.

“I’m your sidekick.” He spat the word. Every time he saw it in the papers, he wanted to hide in the Cave and scream. “I go where you want, I do what you say, I get to suggest a plan once in a hundred years and you actually consider it once in a million.”

Bruce refused to give him so much as a quirked eyebrow or a shrug as he unbuckled his boots and laid them, perfectly neat, on the rack. “I value your suggestions. When they don’t result in an Arkham prisoner escaping from a burning building because _you_ decided that the police couldn’t handle canvassing for survivors.”

Dick ripped off his mask and ignored his stinging cheeks. “I saved people! Isn’t that our job?” 

Bruce reached behind his back to unzip the top half of his suit. Dick didn’t care, didn’t watch as Bruce’s battered skin rose in goosebumps from the chill of the Cave. “Your job is to listen to me.”

“ _Your_ job is to support me! To trust me!” _Love me_. Bruce shook his head and continued changing out of his suit and into the sweatpants Alfred always kept waiting by the vehicle bay, clean and soft. Dick dogged his steps, trying to dart in front of him as Bruce strode to the elevator, begging for his goddamn attention once again.

“And now you’re leaving,” he hissed. “You don’t want to have an adult conversation with me, because you don’t see me as an adult.”

“Change out of your suit, Robin.” Bruce’s voice was so cold that Dick knew he was fighting off some bigger feeling, something that scared him too much to show to the person he’d nearly died for hundreds of times. Bruce always called himself cautious; Dick called him a coward.

Dick wrestled his way into the elevator and ripped the rest of his tunic’s buttons apart. His canary yellow cape fluttered to the floor. Bruce kicked it away as he stepped out of the elevator into the manor proper, bare feet sinking into the carpet.

“Fucking talk to me, Bruce. At least look at me.” He didn’t plead, he didn’t.

Bruce graced him with a curt, “Language.” Dick resisted the urge to step on the backs of his heels as he followed him down the hallway.

“I’m sorry that you can’t handle the fact that I’ve grown up and I don’t wanna trail after you in my goddamn pixie boots anymore,” he seethed. “You need me, I need you,” and he felt like the strongest person in the world for admitting that right now, “so why can’t we be partners?”

Bruce stopped suddenly and shouldered open his bedroom door with a rough shove. The door had nearly swung shut from the force before Dick stuck his foot out and crossed the threshold. Here was Bruce Wayne’s inner sanctum, the place where he dressed and slept and fucked women that Dick pretended not to hear from down the hall. In the dark space, cushioned with plush rugs and long, black drapes that hung from the posts of his titanic bed, their bare skin—Bruce’s chest, Dick’s shoulders and back—felt less like a professional necessity and more—more—intimate?

Nowhere left to run, Bruce turned and finally looked him in the eye. “We’re going to talk about this later.”

“Even when we’re not in the field, you’re giving me orders,” Dick scoffed. He trampled over the invisible line Bruce had drawn when Dick’s voice had dropped and crowded into his personal space, pointing an indignant finger at his chest. “We’re gonna talk about this _now_.”

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched down. A couple more minutes of this and he’d clench his fists, bare his teeth, and start yelling. Maybe Dick wanted it, this time.

“You want to leave.” Bruce kept his voice perfectly level, his blue eyes flinty and chipped. “You’re asking me for something that you know I can’t give you so that you can justify leaving.”

“Fuck you.” God, it felt good to see Bruce blink in surprise. “What do you mean you can’t give it to me? You don’t see me as an equal?”

Bruce’s foot turned toward his bed; he wanted to retreat. “You’re seventeen.”

“I'm seventeen but I'm not naïve.” Dick inched closer, until he had to crane his head to look up at him. God, Bruce was too tall. “I've seen people die, I've had guns drawn on me, I've stitched up your wounds. What more do I have to go through,” his voice nearly cracked here, something thick and awful creeping up his vocal cords, “before you can respect me the way I deserve?”

Bruce swallowed and said nothing. His eyes darted around the room, trying to focus on something behind Dick’s shoulder. Dick got as close as he dared, so that their toes touched, and laid a hand on each side of Bruce’s jaw. Dick’s anger had soured into desperation, something bittersweet that he knew Bruce had been tasting on the back of his own tongue for the past couple years.

He could try this. He would try this. His arms started shaking, but he couldn’t let something as childish as fear stop him. “I _want_ to stay with you,” he said, voice hushed. “I want to be Batman and Robin.”

Bruce looked down at him. His shoulders slumped. “Then don’t leave. Nothing has to change.”

Dick laughed. “I need things to change.”

Slowly, as if trying not to startle an animal, he trailed his hands down Bruce’s jaw, brushed each carotid artery on their way down his throat, and tripped across his pectorals. His fingers slotted in the gaps between Bruce’s ribs, framing him from both sides. No escape.

Bruce just stared. His hands twitched at his sides, involuntary shudders that traveled through his body until Dick felt his chest tremble. “You don’t want this.”

“I do.” Dick kissed a scar just under his nipple. Bruce didn’t even try to jerk away. “So do you.”

“I’m your father.” Not a denial.

Another kiss, in the center of his sternum. “You’re my guardian. For the next eleven months.” Dick peeked up to give him a winning smile, one that hurt. “Then we’ll just be strangers.”

Bruce frowned. “You could _never_ —”

Dick shut him up with a real kiss. Soft, open-mouthed, breathy. Warm. Both their lips were chapped from their time spent crouched on Gotham’s windy rooftops. Bruce relaxed just enough for Dick to slip his tongue inside, tasting the salt and grit of the vitamin water that he drank after patrol.

Dick pulled away. He whispered, “I know. I know we’re not strangers. And we’re not father and son, either.”

Bruce’s mouth twisted into a thin line, his shoulders tensed again, he could push Dick back and slip away and tell Alfred to drive Dick to the nearest bus station and it would all be over, everything. Panicked, Dick gripped Bruce’s shoulders and hoisted himself up to wrap his legs around his waist. Bruce’s wide hands shot up to support him, a reflex that Dick was happy to see he still had.

“Come here,” Dick said in his deepest, huskiest tone. He grabbed both of Bruce’s ears and dipped down to kiss him again, harder, forcing his lips open and licking into his mouth until Bruce—

Bruce responded. He tilted his head to the side, relaxed his jaw, and clenched his hands on Dick’s ass until he yelped. The movement knocked him into Bruce’s sternum, brushing his clit against Bruce’s abs. He gripped Bruce’s hair as hard as he dared and used his core strength to grind against him.

The kiss quickly devolved into gasps—how was he already lightheaded?—and then a startled squeal when Bruce shifted to balance him on one arm and used his free hand to tear at Robin’s leotard. He hooked brutal fingers around a shoulder strap and yanked until the elastic snapped and the stitches from his pit to his hip ruptured. Dick let himself shudder at Bruce’s show of strength, finally, after all these years of swallowing his reactions, pretending he didn’t like it when Bruce hauled him over his shoulder like a bag of rice and walked away.

Pretending he didn’t get wet when Bruce pinned him to the sparring mat without even a breath of effort. Dick couldn’t pretend now; with his leotard thrown away, his cunt was bare to the chill of the room and the heat of Bruce’s stomach.

Bruce wrapped his free hand around the back of Dick’s neck and stared at him with crazed eyes. “You don’t—?”

“Underwear?” Dick laughed. “Just gets in the way. I stopped wearing it a while ago.” _When you stopped talking to me in the locker room_.

Bruce shook his head. His breath seemed to have gotten stuck in the back of his throat. Dick smirked and rubbed his clit on Bruce’s chest, dripping slick down his abs. The friction felt almost as good as taking Bruce apart, unraveling all his pretenses and lies until he couldn’t look at Dick with anything other than lust and wonder.

A tight squeeze of his nape was all the warning Dick got before Bruce spun them around and dumped Dick on the bed. He couldn’t swallow a whine before Bruce followed, his knees digging into the mattress on either side of Dick’s hips, his hands gripping Dick’s wrists until his bones creaked. Pinning him like on the mat, with less technique and more ferocity.

“Bruce,” he gasped as Bruce darted down to pepper kisses on his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his chin, even his eyelids. “ _God_.” He tried to rock up against him, but Bruce was too high up, too far away.

“You’re so _small_ ,” Bruce whispered. Dick’s eyes flew open. Something slimed around in his chest. “This is your first time.”

Not a question. Hardly anything that Bruce said to him was a question.

Dick nodded anyway, throwing his head back against the covers and baring his throat. He got the point; teeth grazed over where his Adam’s apple would’ve been and then closed over the curve of his neck, too high for Robin’s costume to hide. Dick bucked against Bruce’s hold and moaned. Being marked, being Bruce’s—it lit him on fire and the fire hurt.

“How long,” Dick said between short breaths, “how long have you wanted to do this?”

Bruce’s teeth stuttered, digging into Dick’s throat a little bit too sharply. Dick hid his flinch. Slowly, Bruce raised himself up again so he could look at Dick directly, his gaze as sharp as his teeth. He was leveraging himself on Dick’s wrists; they started to ache.

After a lingering pause, “Longer than I should have.”

Dick cocked his head and grinned. “Yeah?” As deftly as he could manage with his head spinning and his cunt throbbing, he curled his legs so they slid under Bruce’s stomach, raised his hips, and wrapped them around Bruce’s waist again. Fuck, was that his cock? Dick shivered and said, “I’ve wanted it since I was twelve.”

Bruce screwed his eyes shut and finally, finally ground down against him, his erection dragging across Dick’s clit so slowly that Dick wanted to scream. He bit his lip and continued, “Why do you think I never got with anyone else? It wasn’t for lack of opportunity.”

There it was. A goddamn growl, because he’d always known Bruce’s possessiveness had to come from somewhere else. Somewhere Bruce hadn’t ever planned to show him. He would’ve rather pushed Dick farther and farther away and let him live with the belief that Bruce was disappointed in him, that he hadn’t been good enough to keep.

Anger and lust weaved a tight knot in his stomach that made Dick struggle harder against Bruce’s hold on his wrists, trying to slip out of a grip so tight that it burned his skin. Bruce ignored him and sucked another bruise onto the other side of his throat. Bruce’s hips ground faster, with more weight behind them, Dick’s cunt soaking through Bruce’s sweatpants until the cotton felt like nothing at all. Sparks of friction clouded his mind until Dick forgot anything else he wanted to do other than fuck and take and come.

Dick gasped as Bruce’s right hand released his wrist and all the prickly blood rushed back at once. He heard fabric shuffle, he saw Bruce’s black head as he looked down at their bodies, he felt— _oh_ —it was bare, dripping on Dick’s pubic hair, almost as wet as he was. Dick craned his head to see: Bruce’s cock was cut, with a little ridge on the shaft that almost looked like a scar, and two veins that shone bright blue through his flushed skin. It was thick and heavy and made Dick whine and twist his body so he could line up the head with his cunt and _get started already_ —

Through the static, he heard Bruce whisper, “Shh, it’s okay. You’re going to be so good, you’re so good for me.” Dick swallowed his tongue and thrashed, blood burning hotter by the second, with each word Bruce pressed to his temple as he rubbed the head of his cock against Dick’s folds: “Such a pretty boy, you’re perfect.”

“Please,” Dick whimpered, “I’m ready, please take me.”

“No fingers?” As if Bruce hadn’t already spread Dick’s lips around his cock and begun pressing against his hole.

“No, please—” Dick forced his eyes open to take in Bruce’s face the second before he gave in and fucked the boy he’d raised: gaze clear and intense, mouth parted just enough to let out little huffs, every muscle in his face slack, relaxed. At peace. Happy, even. Loving in a way that Dick hadn’t seen in a very, very long time. Tears crawled up Dick’s throat to sting his eyes. He raised his hand to cup Bruce’s cheek and whispered, “ _Please_.”

Bruce kissed his palm, entwined his fingers through Dick’s other hand, and pushed. No matter how wet he was, it was always gonna hurt—Dick knew that—he’d thought about it, jerked off to the idea of pain shooting through his hips and thighs and chest.

Here, now, Dick tugged on Bruce’s hair, hugged Bruce’s face to his chest, and gritted his teeth through a long groan. He had no choice, nowhere to go; Bruce’s cock forced his body to stretch as Bruce lowered his hips in a single, slow thrust. His collarbone felt damp and he realized Bruce was panting, hot breaths skating over his skin. Their hips met and Bruce’s balls brushed his ass and he was so deep that Dick’s cervix ached and so thick that he didn’t know if Bruce could ever take it out.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dick sighed. Bruce chuckled. Dick’s fingers felt like they would snap from how hard Bruce clutched them. Bruce’s other palm and forearm dug into the mattress beside Dick’s head, keeping himself from smothering him. Teeth scraped over his shoulder and his cunt jolted with pain and pleasure as Bruce started rocking into him. His cock slowly dragged over his g-spot and crowded his a-spot again, and again, until Dick tightened his legs around Bruce’s waist and writhed up to meet him.

“God, you’re big,” he muttered and instantly flushed red. Bruce raised his head to kiss him, but Dick tugged on the back of Bruce’s hair to reveal _his_ throat. He nipped little bruises along Bruce’s pulse to mask the sounds Bruce’s cock was teasing out of him as it slid in and out, moving just an inch at a time, and then two inches, all the way until his hole burned around Bruce’s cockhead before it thrust back in to kiss his cervix.

Something was shaking the mattress beside Dick’s head; he turned and saw Bruce’s elbow tremoring, about to buckle. Dick breathed, “Oh,” head buzzing with the knowledge that Bruce wanted to fuck him so badly that his famous control was about to snap.

“C’mon,” he goaded. He bucked his hips faster, harder, relishing the air he punched out of Bruce’s chest. “Fuck me the way you want to.”

Bruce looked at him and chewed on his lip. “Dick, I don’t…” _Want to hurt me? Good thing I like it._

“Yes, you do.” Dick shined his sharpest grin and yanked on Bruce’s nipple just to see him jolt. “Let me take it.”

A shadow crossed over Bruce’s features, something that Dick had only seen bleeding from beneath Batman’s cowl: attention turned to fixation. Obsession. Bruce tilted his head to the side, watching Dick even as his hips kept moving, until he saw something on Dick’s face, too.

Untangling their hands, Bruce fell onto both elbows, curled his arms under Dick’s back, and pushed down on his shoulders with his palms. He tucked his face under Dick’s chin until all he could see were the tips of Bruce’s sweat-curling hair, pulled out nearly all the way, and slammed back in.

It hurt, it hurt, but fuck if Dick didn’t love the rough rhythm that Bruce gave into, forcing his cunt open and thrusting in so deep that Dick’s whole body cramped. The only things keeping Dick from sliding across the sheets from the sheer force of Bruce’s hips were the hands on his shoulders, pinning him close to Bruce’s chest. He flung his arms across Bruce’s back and tried to hold on, tried to bite his cheek until Bruce’s cock stretching him out—and the scratchy hair that led down to his thighs rubbing against Dick’s clit—felt so good that he knew he’d let out a moan instead of a scream.

“That’s it,” Dick choked out. Sweat beaded on his forehead, under his jaw, cool and sticky. He jerked when Bruce’s tongue lapped it up. He wasn’t making a sound, just grunting into Dick’s collarbone as he fucked into him at a pace that only a damn hero could keep up.

It was heady, finally knowing how much Bruce wanted him, how much he loved using Dick’s body, how much he loved being _first_. Dick groaned and hooked his nails into Bruce’s back, feeling scar tissue ripple over muscle as his hips worked. He could smell his own come where it drenched Bruce’s thighs and pooled onto the sheets beneath them. Bruce could probably smell it too, would probably let it linger on his sheets for days until Al—

Dick shook his head, knocking his chin into Bruce’s temple. He huffed out a strained laugh and tugged on the small hairs at Bruce’s nape until Bruce pulled back to look at him. Fuck, the warmth in those eyes stung.

Bruce stared at him and then pressed their foreheads together. He grunted, “You okay?” Dick whimpered at another sharp thrust, another, another, and breathed, “Please.”

Chapped lips grazed his brow and each cheekbone, before lingering by his ear: “You’re so good.” More rough fucks that threatened to knock Dick up the bed and ram his skull into the headboard. “I told you you’d be good.”

Something awful welled up behind Dick’s eyes and burned. He heard a dark voice murmur, “Perfect, you feel perfect,” and underneath that a weak string of curses and a small voice pleading _Bruce, Bruce_. That was the—that was the name of his guardian, the man who plucked him from the bloody big top and wrapped a sweet-smelling jacket around his tiny shoulders and gave him a bed and a purpose. Robin, he was so happy to be Robin, so happy to have Batman protecting him. And Batman protected everyone, the whole city, but he was only _his_ father. He belonged to Dick the way he’d never belong to anyone else, except he didn’t want Dick anymore, he wanted him to leave—

Tears led streaks of fire down his sweaty skin and onto the sheets. He gasped under Bruce’s weight and dug his nails so hard into Bruce’s back that his fingers cramped. Someone was talking, some kid was whining, “Daddy, please,” _stop_. _Don’t,_ “Daddy,” _don’t stop_.

Bruce moaned, honest-to-God moaned, and Dick’s core ached as bad as his lungs when Bruce fumbled a hand under Dick’s lower back to lift his hips and shove him as far onto his cock as he could. “Shh, baby boy,” he cooed hoarsely. A sob wrestled its way out of Dick’s chest. “Daddy’s here.”

He thrashed, shook his head, _you’re not here, you never are, not anymore_ , but the hand on his back slid down to thumb over his asshole and shoot sparks up his spine. Prickly hair kept scraping against his clit and Bruce’s cock throbbed inside his cunt and he couldn’t help clenching down and crying out for his daddy because it hurt so fucking bad, coming around something so big.

“There we go,” his daddy groaned, “good boy.” Dick writhed and didn’t know if he was trying to squirm out from underneath the hot body on top of him and run or trying to press closer and chase the aftershocks crashing down around him. Either way, there was nowhere to go as the man thrust into him until his cunt stopped pulsing and just let the man take.

His daddy whispered, “ _Fuck_ ,” and then, “Where do you want me to come?”

“In,” he said, because where else? Daddy bit down on his shoulder to hide his shout as he came bare in Dick’s cunt. The static in Dick’s legs and hips crept up through his body, until it fizzled through his head and he lost track of everything but the softening weight inside him.

Eventually, it slipped out, pulling a whine from him. Daddy’s scorching weight rolled off of him; he shivered in the chill air, and then shivered harder when a blunt finger stroked down his folds. They were puffy with blood, too sensitive, and he started crying again.

Daddy shushed him again, but this time his hot breath hazed over his wet inner thighs. “Beautiful. Let me in.” The finger trailed down until it circled his asshole, slick with both their come. It slid in easily, but still punched the air out of Dick’s chest like a kick to the solar plexus. Did he have to stretch another hole? Would he try to fuck Dick’s throat, too? The finger started moving, dragging on his rim, and he felt too full, too small, if Daddy tried to stick his dick in there he’d bleed—

A wide tongue spread his folds and licked a long stripe up to his clit. Dick jumped; he might’ve slammed his pubic bone into the man’s nose if he weren’t clutching Dick’s hip with his free hand. A soft chuckle, followed by, “Relax. This is just for you.”

Dick stared up at the rosewood paneled ceiling and groped blindly until he found Daddy’s hand. Dick took it, laced their fingers together, and murmured, “Because I was good?”

Instead of an answer, he got another swipe of a tongue that made his pounding cunt throb. He hated it; it was too much; he needed it; he didn’t want Daddy to stop licking through his folds and their come—shit, he was eating his own come—to fuck his hole with his tongue. The finger in his ass hooked around his rim and twisted in a circle until it stretched his ass as far as it could, making Dick hiss.

Dick squeezed his daddy’s hand and distracted himself from the sparks of pleasure threatening to overwhelm him by tracing the grooves in the ceiling, the crown molding along the wall, the tapered bedposts and black drapes. Just like Bruce’s room.

Oh, God. _Bruce_.

His tears turned into sobs. What had he been thinking? What had Bruce been _saying_? Bruce thrust his tongue into his cunt a final time before pulling back to lap at his clit. Dick started panting, his mind playing _I’m good and he wants me_ on repeat.

Bruce swiped roughly over his clit and thrust his finger up, up, rubbing Dick’s g-spot through the thin wall. He’d said, _Daddy’s here._ Bruce wasn’t his father. Couldn’t be, not now. Maybe—he could’ve said the same things years ago—he could’ve loved Dick like this the whole time—

“Bruce,” he whimpered. His hips rocked up to meet Bruce’s mouth. “Please, Bruce,” and his cunt started twitching around nothing. Bruce’s finger sped up, ramming into his g-spot now, and Dick couldn’t breathe. He could only clamp his eyes shut and feel and give in to everything that he’d never wanted to know about himself. Bruce shoved another wide finger in his ass and Dick broke, crying, “Daddy, Bruce, Daddy,” as he came for the second time in God knows how long.

The bed shifted. Dick lay on his back, feeling like he could melt into the mattress. Salt and a familiar musk flooded his mouth; Bruce was kissing him, pushing both of their come into his mouth until it coated his throat. He swallowed and mindlessly kissed back, lingering in Bruce’s attention and desire, obsession.

Sometime after he’d come, Dick had flung his arms above his head, palms open, in a mirror image of how Bruce had pinned him earlier. Everything was sore, from his used cunt, to his stretched ass, to his overworked abdominal muscles, to his raspy throat. Even his nailbeds ached. The back of Bruce’s hand stroked Dick’s cheek in a motion bursting with the kind of tenderness that Dick had always wanted from him. He had doubted that it existed.

This was all he’d had to do. Open his mouth and his legs and see what would open up in Bruce in return. Was he still crying or was that just sweat? Bruce kissed it away anyway and Dick’s heart cracked against his ribs like a baton on a body. He felt—so small. Too small to love Bruce this hard.

“Dick?” He tried to open his eyes, but he was so floaty, head full of cotton candy. His fingertips tingled. “Are you okay?”

A groan creaked its way out of his chest. Bruce pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Do you want to take a bath?” Dick could only hum, but Bruce understood him. The bed dipped and rose as Bruce stood. Dick turned his head to the side and squinted at him: cock soft and surreal to see, thighs standing strong without a whisper of weakness. Still, his knees wobbled. A smile snuck onto Dick’s face.

Thick, familiar arms slipped under his body and lifted him into the air and against Bruce’s chest. “Bridal style?” Dick murmured, trying to tease the words into a joke. Bruce just flexed his arms and carried Dick from the soft dark of the bedroom to a bathroom that shone with white tile. The light stabbed Dick’s eyes. He grunted and tucked his face into Bruce’s pecs.

The bath passed in a daze. Everything smelled like salt and sandalwood. Bruce sat him on his lap and held him securely enough that Dick could close his eyes and fade away into a nap. He only stirred when Bruce brushed a cloth across his inner thighs and crotch. Neither of them spoke, but Bruce’s breaths on his ear carried the weight of words.

He let Bruce towel him off and carry him back to bed in silence, propped on his hip with an arm supporting his butt. Dick’s head rested on his shoulder. He watched Bruce fold the top sheet over the wet spot and let out a raspy laugh.

“Yes?” Bruce said. His voice was softer than the towel. Bruce set Dick down and stretched himself across the bed with his head barely propped up on the pillows. He opened his arms in a gesture so honest that Dick’s breath caught. Dick draped himself along Bruce’s side, his head returning to Bruce’s shoulder.

“We made such a mess…” Dick whispered with a short giggle. He was flying, swinging between rooftops. Bruce hugged him closer, smooshing Dick’s cheek against his chest.

“I think the linens will recover.”

“You never know. Maybe we should burn them.” Bruce tensed just a bit. Dick didn’t want to question why. No room for thoughts like that, not now.

Silence resettled on their skin. Bruce traced circles and dashes on Dick’s stomach, making him shiver. Something sweet curled Dick’s tongue and opened his mouth. Out poured, “I love you.”

A finger tapped his chin and tilted his head up. Bruce was there, his gaze direct and unclouded and almost too hard to look at. All he said was, “Dick…” The slightest furrow marred his brow.

Dick stroked the furrow. “No,” Dick said thoughtfully, “I’m in love with you.”

Bruce’s face opened up into a smile that Dick had always ached to see. He crooked his head to the side and kissed Dick, gentle and breathy. His pulse under Dick’s fingers, though, it trembled.

Halfway returned to himself, Dick shook off some of his loopiness. This was important. He poked between Bruce’s eyebrows and said, “Your turn.”

A hundred expressions flitted across Bruce’s face, too quickly for anyone other than Dick to read: conflict, hope, guilt, love— _the love he’d shown his baby boy, not Dick_ —protectiveness, satisfaction, fear. Possessiveness. Fear.

Dick started frowning, but Bruce finally answered, in the roughest voice he’d heard off the battlefield: “I… need you. You saved me.”

A knot that had been gnarling in Dick’s core for years began to unravel. He took in Bruce’s thawed eyes, his chapped lips, the damp hair that made him look so _young_. “When?”

Bruce cupped his cheek in one dwarfing hand, his fingertips brushing Dick’s earlobe. “Every day since I took you away from the orphanage and you clung to me the entire ride home.”

“Since the beginning.” Dick didn’t want his voice to waver, to thicken with tears. He was sick of crying like a kid.

Bruce nodded. He leaned down only for a moment, to kiss Dick’s forehead. He took a deep breath. “I could’ve become… someone else. If I didn’t have you.” He hugged Dick closer. “If I didn’t get to care for you and protect you.”

God, it’s what Dick always wanted. A sob hiccupped in his throat. Bruce thumbed the corner of Dick’s eye and hummed so low that Dick could barely hear it. Maybe Bruce wasn’t even aware that he was doing it.

Dick let the quiet stretch on for a minute while he gathered the pieces of himself in his palms. He whispered, “But are you in love with me?”

Bruce didn’t quite freeze. He ducked his chin and hid his face in Dick’s hair, boyishly shy. Vulnerable. Afraid.

Finally, Bruce confessed, “I can’t let you leave.”

He sounded so… torn up about it. So guilty that even though he hadn’t said it, Dick knew Bruce had to love him. For the hundredth time that night, tears overwhelmed him, stung as they streaked down his face and dripped onto Bruce’s throat.

“You want to keep me.” Dick’s voice cracked with awe.

Bruce was shivering and his pulse was bobbing in his neck. Carefully, slowly, he slid from beneath Dick and propped himself up on one elbow to loom over him. He was a mountain range; he blocked the rest of the room, the windows, the moon. He knocked their foreheads together and said, “Yes. I want to keep you. You’re mine.”

Dick threw his arms around Bruce’s shoulders and yanked him down with all his strength. He wasn’t afraid like before—he _wanted_ Bruce’s heat and weight to smother him. Bruce let almost all his weight rest on Dick’s body, holding himself up just enough that Dick could breathe. Dick soaked in his affection and felt like that little boy. Bruce’s little boy. He cried like one, for a long time.

By the time his body had drained itself and his lashes were stiff with salt, Bruce had draped a blanket over both their legs and drawn the curtains around his bed. Dick was tired beyond tired; he was delirious. He was fading.

Bruce laid his heavy head on Dick’s bare belly. Dick twined his fingers in Bruce’s hair and relished how soft it was.

A quiet question floated in the darkness: “Did I hurt you?”

Dick smiled. His cunt ached and his legs would be too unsteady to hop from roof to roof safely for days. But he’d gotten what he wanted. And it was so easy.

“No, Daddy.”

-

“Hey, you there?” A shadow passed in front of his shut lids. Dick’s eyes creaked open: it was Tim’s hand, waving in his face.

On reflex, Dick pulled his lips into a smile. “Hey, Timmy.”

Tim didn’t like that very much. Frown lines creased his young face, too many for a boy his age, and Dick’s chest hurt to see it.

“Dick, did you go somewhere?” Dick tilted his head. It felt like a fishbowl, water sloshing out of heavy glass and staining the carpet. Tim bit his lip and knelt down in front of the couch where Dick was sitting. “I mean, you don’t look like you’re all the way here. Did you dissociate? Did I trigger you?”

Tim looked so worried. He gnawed on his lip until it started bleeding again. Dick hated that, hated being responsible for any of his brothers stressing out over things that didn’t matter. He answered, “No, buddy. I’m just tired.”

His little brother’s narrowed eyes peeled Dick’s lie apart until it fell at their feet like shredded paper. He hated that look sometimes; it reminded him of Bruce.

“I did trigger you,” Tim decided. “I shouldn’t have left you like that, I’m sorry.”

He hated, hated, hated— “No, Tim—”

Before he could finish, Tim shuffled closer, achingly slowly, and wrapped his arms around Dick’s shoulders for the second time that night. Dick gave up and rested his head on Tim’s shoulder, his arms limp on his lap.

“I’m the older brother,” he whispered. “This is backwards. You’re supposed to cry on _my_ shoulder.”

Tim shrugged and began rubbing circles in the center of Dick’s back. “Why? Because you have to be the strongest of us?” Dick nodded. “That’s stupid.” The words smarted, just a little bit, and he tensed.

Tim hugged him tighter and continued, “Not because you’re stupid. Bruce teaching you that was stupid. You want proof that you’re smart? He did all that to you,” Tim’s voice caught in his throat, the words almost too thick to push out, “and you still got out. You’re Nightwing!”

A raspy, unlikely chuckle. “I am,” Dick said. “But I wouldn’t say…” Tim waited as Dick thought, and he loved him for that. “I wouldn’t phrase it that way. He didn’t ‘do all that to me.’ We—we did it together.”

A pause. Tim started shaking, and then took the deepest breath Dick had heard from him aside from the time he’d almost drowned in the sewers. “You were seventeen,” Tim reminded him.

“Yes, and—”

“So it was illegal. Bruce broke the law.”

“I mean—”

Tim’s voice was flinty, matter-of-fact, but he clutched Dick closer when he said, “It was statutory rape.”

“But I—I wanted it, Tim, and I started it.” Dick felt like he really would cry, and then everything would be over; no one would ever believe that he was strong again. “He never would’ve done it if I hadn’t gone there first. It wasn’t rape.” His voice started splintering. “Maybe it was illegal, but I wanted it. The law can’t cover everything, it’s not complex enough.”

Tim’s hands slid from between Dick’s shoulder blades to grip his upper arms. He looked Dick in the eye and asked, “When Bruce died, if I had come to you and said that I wanted him back because we were in love, how would you feel?”

Each of his muscles tensed, group by group, until Dick could barely breathe. “I… You wouldn’t.”

Tim’s eyes were so kind, so kind as he was about to tear his brother apart. “But if I did. If Bruce and I did have sex, at the age I am right now, seventeen, would that be okay?”

He didn’t want to imagine them together: Tim so lithe and pale in Bruce’s lap, too small to push off the arm that pinned him to Bruce’s chest. Too weak. Too young. Softly, “No.”

“If I told you that despite all that, I considered Bruce my father, would that be okay? Or would that be even worse?”

Dick knew it wasn’t—normal families didn’t—and if he wanted to call them brothers, he’d have to—

“…Worse,” he whispered.

“Would you say that Bruce was abusing me?” Dick hated that word. Hated everything Tim was saying. “Taking advantage of his son?”

Maybe if he stopped answering, Tim would run out of words. Dick smoothed his expression and gazed over Tim’s shoulder to study the chipped wood paneling on the wall. He still saw the furrow between Tim’s brow deepen.

He rubbed his useless hands up and down Dick’s upper arms. “If I told you that I was absolutely, one hundred percent sure that I wanted to keep having sex with our father, would that mean that he wasn’t hurting me? That he wasn’t raping me?”

God, God, God that word pounded the blood from Dick’s head. He felt it slither down to his toes, leaving him senseless, dizzy, panicked. “Tim,” he begged, “Stop, please, I can’t—”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t keep thinking like this. I owe you so much, I’ve learned everything I know from you, I _love_ you. Please just. Agree with me that it wasn’t okay.” Now Tim was begging, he’d made his little brother beg. Dick’s tongue rotted in his mouth; he tasted roadkill. Tim grasped both of Dick’s hands and said, “You thought you had a choice, but you didn’t. You were a kid, so you couldn’t say yes. And he was your dad, so you couldn’t say no.”

“But I could have!” He felt all of seventeen again, which meant feeling like the boy Bruce had brought out of him. Back then, he’d loved being that boy. Now Bruce wasn’t here, so Dick didn’t know what to do or think or say.

Tim shook his head. Dick still couldn’t look at him. He focused on the cloudy window and hey, maybe Gordon would shine the Bat Signal clear and bright and Dick could put on Bruce’s suit and leave.

Tim insisted, “Not while knowing that he was the only thing between you and the streets.”

“He wouldn’t have—” _kicked me out_ , Dick wanted to say. But in a way, Bruce had. He’d fought viciously against Dick leaving for Blüdhaven, had even crowded Dick against a wall and curled his fists and watched Dick flinch, and once Dick was gone—nothing. No calls. No visits. A year and a half later, Dick read about Jason in the fucking newspaper.

Tim watched every thought strike Dick like lightning. Dick felt so ugly, but Tim never looked away.

His brother spoke so quietly sometimes. “You stopped having sex with him and then he left you on your own. Was that a coincidence?”

The gravity of their conversation suddenly slammed down on Dick’s shoulders. He bowed his head and murmured, “I wanted it to be.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“I guess—I don’t—” Inhale. Exhale. Don’t choke on those tears; let it happen. Let it hurt. “No. It wasn’t.”

When Tim hugged him this time, Dick flung his arms around Tim’s waist and buried his dripping nose in Tim’s shirt and let out barking, pathetic sobs. He barely heard Tim say, “I’m sorry you were all alone. I wish I’d known you back then.” Lips on the crown of his head. “I bet you were the coolest.”

Dick laughed between wet gasps and cried, cried, cried. For Damian, for Jason, for himself. For Tim, who muttered quiet jokes into Dick’s hair to keep him from fading away. For Bruce, whose cape he still saw fluttering around split-brick alley corners.

Dick was so tired of ghosts. He just wanted his family.

Tim held him until sunlight tripped through the cracks in the windowpane. At some point, Tim had climbed onto the sofa, sat back, and pulled Dick’s head to his chest again. His little heart beat so slowly. Dick rubbed his scratchy-dried face on Tim’s shirt and broke the silence with a thought that had been rattling in his head for years, like a rock in a boot:

“Tim, did he love you?”

His brother sighed; Dick heard a hiccup echo in his throat. He looked up and saw Tim’s eyes, bloodshot and shining.

“I think so.” He dragged a weak hand through Dick’s hair. “But it’s not worth it. And we don’t need it. Okay?”

Dick nodded, feeling like a ragdoll held together with a single thread. He thought he understood, after all this time. “I love you.” He pictured Damian rising from his bed and straightening the tie of his school uniform; he imagined Jason setting his hood on the ground, perched on a rooftop ledge and watching the sunrise. “I love all of you.”

Tim’s smile could set everything right, as long as Dick saw it every day from now on. “We love you too, Big Bird.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during a four day manic episode! My friend is really glad that I've finished it lmao. Don't rely on your little brothers for therapy in real life, kids. Robin Union 4Evr


End file.
